A lawsuit filed against Marilyn Manson by his former assistant has been dismissed.
Ashley Walters, who worked for the rock musician between 2010 and 2011, sued him for sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful termination in May 2021.
A different judge dismissed the lawsuit in May 2022, but the case was reinstated in December 2023 following an appeal.
But on Tuesday, Los Angeles County Judge Steve Cochran ruled that the case would be dismissed for a second time because the timeline falls outside of the statute of limitations.
Despite Walters’s lawyers arguing that her alleged trauma impaired her ability to come forward, the judge insisted that he has doesn’t have authority to proceed with the trial, which had been set to begin in January 2026.
“We have a situation where the complaint was not filed until about 10 years after the operative events. I’m not able to find that the delayed discovery rule is applicable,” he declared at a hearing. “I don’t have the authority to rule that the delayed discovery doctrine would apply under the circumstances that exist in this case.”
The 56-year-old rocker, real name Brian Warner, has not yet publicly commented on the decision.
However, his lawyer Howard King told Rolling Stone that the dismissal was a victory for his client.
“It’s gratifying, after all these years, that a judge can just look at the facts and see that once again, Brian Warner was wrongfully accused,” he commented. “It’s nice for him to get some justice, though it was at great personal cost. Now he can move on.”
And in a statement issued to the same publication, Walters’s lawyer, Kate McFarlane, noted that she was “disappointed”.
“We think this is the wrong decision. The delayed discovery rule is specifically to address situations where victims of sexual abuse deserve the ability to seek justice when their abuser has used tactics to prevent them from coming forward,” she added. “This is something we see time and time again, and it seems the law hasn’t caught up to the science and what’s right for victims. But I don’t believe this is the end of the road.”
Previously, Warner reached out-of-court settlements with several of his accusers, including actress Esmé Bianco, and dropped a long-running defamation lawsuit against former partner, Evan Rachel Wood, in November 2024.
Officers at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department investigated several abuse claims made against the musician, but in January, announced that no charges would be filed due to lack of evidence and a legal technicality.
The Beautiful People singer has always maintained his innocence, claiming that all of his sexual relationships have been consensual.
